I belong to the the "as soon as possible" school. It is just something that you need to be able to do and perfection comes with practice.
As to the differences between f/w and r/w, (caveat - I can not fly a hecilopter, but have spent quite a few hours in one recently) the only big thing I've noticed is selecting a new frequency at times of high workload, where a spare pair of hands can be a real boon.